The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1887-05-05
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER, MAY 5, 1887.

it is a full and luxuriant growth, but
do not Craze it, and the fourth fall
after the tobacco crop, prepare the
land for tobacco for the fifth year by
turning in the fall crop Of green clover
and timothy before the frost or cool
fall winds dry it. When the wheat
is seeded, the land should be MANFRED
and guanoed for the wheat and grass,
and the grass should be well nursed
by top-dressing with manure and a
mixture Of lime and plaster, to keep a
full growth Of grass on the land while
it is resting and recuperating after the
crop Of tobacco and wheat. At the
end Of this four years, you will have
gotten n crop of tobacco, one crop
of wheat and two crops of grass, and
if the farmer will conform strictly to
these suggestions, he will be paid
during the process of improving, in
the crops taken off, and the land will
be in very much better condition for
another crop of tobacco the fifth year
than it was the first. 1t will be neces-
sary to keep up the manuring each
year thereafter, while going through
the same process, to prevent the lands
losing anything, but it ought to be
gaining in strength and fertility every
year.
[ think a planter ought to put no
land in tobacco from which he cannot,
with fair seasons, reasonably expect
to get at least 1000 lbs. of tobacco to
the acre, and keep on feeding and i'm
proving it till he gets upwards Of
1000 pounds from an acre. When
ever the planter gets as much as 900
to 1000 lbs. to the acre, he may be
sure of getting big prices for it, and
here comes in the profit in this style Of
farming, as it costs nc more to work
an acre that brings 1000 lbs. than it
does n that brings 500 lbs. When
he gets the 1000 lbs. he may expect
from $40 to SIS per hundred pounds,
and when he gets only from 500 to
600 lbs, he may get only So to S..
So the profit comes in three ways he
saves in the quantity of land worked,
he gets more from the smaller quantity
of land than from the larger, and then
he may reasonably expect three times
as much per hundred. My last sug-
g~estion is, let the crop push you,
but always, be pushing the crop. Be
certain always to be ready to take ad-
vantage of the seasons as they come.
I have frequently, in walking through
tobacco fields in the summer, seen
suckers on the nearly ripe tobacco
from six to twelve inches as they ap-
pear. If you wish to make good, strong
and heavy tobacco, the worms also
should be closely watched and de-
stroyed.
The process [ suggested above to
~recuperate u lands, many will say is
too slow that it will take something
like a lifetime to get enough improved
to make much money but my calcu-
lation is to make good and paying
crops every year. The tobacco will
pay for the first year, the wheat for
the second, and the grass for the next
two years, and then tobacco again.
Cultivate the grasses more, raise more
stock and with them more manure,
and take better care of the manure.
Many lose what little manure they
make for want Of a little care. Ma
nure, we'll cared for and properly used,
is the life of farming.
If by these suggestions any mar
shall be induced to improve his style
Of farming, and to make grass grow
where it didn't grow before, I shall
have done some good.-Thomas J.
Spencer, in Southern Planter.